Ben Adler reports that in March 2007, the E.U. adopted climate and energy goals for 2010 to 2020. The 27 member countries set a goal of reducing carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020 and increasing renewables to 20 percent of their energy portfolio. Unfortunately, they underestimated the carbon intensity of burning wood - a.k.a. biomass - for electricity, and they categorized wood as a renewable fuel.
The result is that E.U. countries with smaller renewable sectors turned to wood to replace coal. Governments provided incentives for energy utilities to make that switch. Now, with a bunch of new European wood-burning power plants having come online, Europeans need wood to feed the beast. But most European countries do not have a lot of available forest left to cut down. So they are importing our forests, especially from the South.
Of course, wood is in some sense renewable. Trees can be regrown. But in other ways it is more like fossil fuels than it is like solar and wind. After all, the whole obsession with renewables is not just because we fear running out of fossil fuels. It is because burning fossil fuels produces CO2 that causes global warming. The same is true of burning wood, unlike wind or solar.
Wood accounts for a majority of renewable energy generation in Poland and Finland, and nearly 40 percent in Germany. It is especially appealing to British energy utilities, because the British government offers generous subsidies for renewable energy and its solar industry is not nearly as advanced as that of Germany.
Resource Portal for I2M Clients, Associates, and Geoscientists
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-